Undo…

I sometimes get overwhelmed in the digital world, ie. there is just so much information coming at me that I just have to unplug for awhile.

It occurred to me that digital and analog affect us in other ways too. I am currently working on a little art project for my dishwasher (see below) and I’ve come to a point where I don’t know if I’m finished or not. I’m worried that if I add more I’ll ‘ruin’ it, because I’m doing it analog I don’t have an undo button. How many things in our life offline do we realize that once we do it, it cannot be undone?

I’ll show you my possibly unfinished art…. perhaps you can help me decide if I’m finished. It’s weird sometimes I *know* the art is complete, sometimes I *know* it needs something more but I have to think on it awhile to figure out what it is… and then there are times when I’m afraid to move forward, worried I’ll ruin it if I do more, but not sure it is finished.

(These aren’t the best photos… I took them with my phone while texting with my husband)…

For some reason the paper I am using really eats up the black pen… I had to get out a sharpie to fill in the letters. Then the sharpie started to act like it was drying out too. The interesting thing is that I decided to do the art a different way and was able to come up with some interesting ideas — like shading with red. 😀

I’m thinking about adding red around the word “dirty” like I did for clean. And I wonder if the clean side needs more art. (and the vinegar? I like to do a vinegar rinse and I wanted a way to remind myself if I had done that or not.)

What do you think? Is it finished? Does it need more?

Until next time…
~nic

P.S. I found the lettering here. The dirty side uses the tangle pattern stishes (p.37,Time to Tangle with Colors) and BDylan. The clean side uses a pattern of bubbles, which is just a circle with a highlight arc and a few popped bubbles.

P.P.S. My art supplies (not all were used for this project):

watercolor brush/pens in primary, secondary, and greyscale

watercolor colored pencils (add water to change their look to more watercolor-like, or to intensify their color)

water brushes in a variety of sizes (used with watercolor pencils)

black pens in a variety of tip sizes

black sharpie

pencil (2B lead – soft and easy to blend) and erasers (including a kneaded eraser)